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Marie and Jean-Paul Lecour, visitors from France, are resting in the lobby of the tourist-class Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue, spoils of the afternoon's shopping rampage piled at their feet.
"We had been wanting to come to New York for many years, and now the exchange rate has made it easy for us," says Madame Lecour, who works for a clothing manufacturer in Paris. "We have a long list of presents to buy."
It is the height of the summer tourist season, and the weak dollar and the lower crime rate have laid out a welcome mat for overseas travelers. Feeling flush, they have hit the shopping circuit, eaten at white tablecloth restaurants and taken guided tours.
But when it comes to accommodations, they'd rather sleep cheap.
Bargain hunting has pushed occupancy at tourist-class hotels to record levels, helping lodging spots that charge less than $100 per night to outpace some of their more luxurious counterparts. Coopers & Lybrand reports that occupancy at tourist class hotels in Manhattan grew 9b in the first half of 1995 over the same period in 1994. The highest-priced hotels, on the other hand, saw a decrease of about 1%.
"The soft dollar has made New York attractive to people who otherwise couldn't afford to come," says Arthur Adler, a Coopers consultant. "On the whole, they probably don't have a lot of money to spend, and maybe they'd rather spend it shopping."
While occupancy at hotels in the luxury and first-class categories was up as well, hoteliers can't ignore the growing preference for lower-end rooms....